Vice President Kamala Harris has talked about her family at length throughout her short campaign, with many members of that extended, blended family showing up in Chicago across the four days of the Democratic National Convention to help introduce the nominee to the country.
Vice President Kamala Harris has talked about her family at length throughout her short campaign, with many members of that extended, blended family showing up in Chicago across the four days of the Democratic National Convention to help introduce the nominee to the country.
Here’s what to know about Harris’ family.
Doug Emhoff: Husband
Dougy, as Harris calls him, has stood beside his wife of a decade as her star rose, going from California’s top lawyer to its junior senator before President Biden chose her in 2020 to be his running mate. When Biden won the election, Harris became the first Black, first Asian and first female VP in US history.
Emhoff got his own historic superlative: “Second Gentleman of the United States.”
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Emhoff was raised in New Jersey with his brother and sister and moved to Los Angeles when he was in high school.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from California State University, Northridge and a J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.
Emhoff is an avid golfer and a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers (though Harris, from the Bay Area, supports San Francisco’s teams).
He married Harris on Aug. 22 2014, a year after the pair were set up on a blind date. Emhoff spoke at the DNC on Tuesday, delivering one of the more memorable and light-hearted speeches focused on how he awkwardly started dating his future wife.
Shyamala Gopalan: Mother
Many of the speakers this week have mentioned Harris’ mother, Shyamala, whom the vice president often cites as her inspiration. She was a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who worked to isolate progesterone receptor genes to advance studies into breast biology and oncology.
Shyamala met her husband Donald Harris, while she was a Ph.D. student. A year later, in 1963, they were married.
Harris’s mother died of colon cancer in 2009 at 70 years old. Harris later carried Shyamala’s ashes to Chenai, on the southeastern coast of India.
Maya Harris: Sister
Maya Harris is the vice president’s younger sister. She is a lawyer as well and was one of three senior policy advisors for Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 presidential campaign.
She went to the University of California Berkeley and Stanford University. At 17, she gave birth to her only child, Meena Harris. In 1998, she married Tony West. They were both part of the 1992 Stanford Law School class.
In 2006, Maya was the lead attorney in League of Women Voters of California v. McPherson. The state court case restored the voting rights to over 100,000 Californians in county jails on probation from felony convictions.
She also served as the vice president for democracy, rights and justice at the Ford Foundation and also co-wrote “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Bring.”
In 2020, the public policy advocate and writer served as chair of the 2020 presidential campaign for her sister.
Maya was previously involved with PolicyLink, the American Civil Liberties Union and with the Center for American Progress. She was the first Jamaican-American to lead the ACLU of Northern California and the first South Asian executive director of an ACLU affiliate.
Harris’ brother-in-law, Tony West, made a surprise appearance at the DNC. The chief legal officer for Uber, noted how he, Harris and her sister were all lawyers who followed different paths in law, but still shared similar values of pursuing justice.
West said one of Harris’ first cases was about a woman who was wrongfully arrested in a police raid.
“Most prosecutors, they would have gone home and dealt with the matter the following Monday,” West said. “But not Kamala.”
Harris knew the woman would have spent the entire weekend in jail, potentially keeping her away from her children and job, he said.
“Within minutes, that woman was released back to her family that night,” West said. “It may seem small but that’s what it means to stand up for justice. That’s what it means to stand for the people, and as Kamala says, ‘when you know what to stand for, you know what to fight for.'”
Meena Harris: Niece
Meena is Maya Harris’s daughter from a previous relationship. She is the founder and CEO of Phenomenal, a consumer and media company.
Meena, who is also a lawyer and author, worked on her aunt’s 2020 presidential campaign. The two share an Oct. 20 birthday.
Meena spoke at the DNC on Thursday night along with Ella Emhoff and Helena Hudlin.
Helena Hudlin: Goddaughter
Helena is the daughter of Harris’s best friend Chrisette Hudlin, who introduced Harris to Emhoff.
Hudlin, a client of Doug’s at the time, happened to also be friends with Harris, who was then the attorney general of California. After meeting with Emhoff at his office, Hudlin called Harris to tell her about it.
“He’s cute and he’s the managing partner of his law firm and I think you’re really going to like him,” Hudlin told Harris.
Kerstin Mackin: Mother to stepchildren
In 1992, Emhoff married film producer Kerstin Mackin. The couple had two children, Cole and Ella, who are named after jazz legends John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald.
Emhoff and Mackin divorced after 16 years of marriage after Emhoff reportedly had an affair. She is now the founder and CEO of the L.A. production company Prettybird, and by all accounts maintains a close relationship with her ex-husband.
Mackin, who uses the last name Emhoff, has recently defended Harris against sexist comments about the vice president not having any biological children of her own.
“These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” she said in a statement. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”
Mackin has been posting photos to Instagram showing her at the DNC each day.
Cole Emhoff: Stepson
Cole, 29, worked at the talent agency WME and then later at Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B. A graduate of Colorado College, he studied psychology and did a presentation in 2017 on “Fake News: How Cognitive Biases Interact with Social Networking Sites to Influence People’s Perception of Misinformation.”
Cole and Greenley Littlejohn, the global product development manager for Brand ID, have been married since last October. Harris officiated the ceremony.
According to Cole’s IMDb profile, he was part of the crew for “Father of the Bride” as well as “Minari” and acted as Hank in the 2017 short “Dance Lady Dance.”
Cole has been seen in the crowd at the DNC throughout the week. He helped to create – and narrate – the video that introduced his father, Doug.
Ella Emhoff: Stepdaughter
Ella, 25, is an artist, model and fashion designer who lives in Brooklyn. She went to the Parsons School of Design, where she majored in fine arts with a concentration in apparel and textiles, graduating in 2021. She regularly posts her work on social media.
In January 2021, just after the inauguration, Ella signed with IMG Models, the famed international modeling agency. She’s been profiled by the New York Times, which noted her many tattoos and penchant for not shaving her underarms.
She is also a part of The 3% Movement, an organization focused on increasing the number of female creative directors.
Ella has been posting to Instagram showing her at the DNC and supporting Harris.
Harris’s stepchildren have been known to refer to their stepmother as “Momala.”
Arden Emhoff: Niece
Arden is the daughter of Doug Emhoff’s brother, Andy. Emhoff has a sister as well, Jaime.
Arden talked at the DNC on Wednesday night along with Jasper Emhoff and Alexander Hudlin.
Arden said that “even as a kid, auntie made me feel like I was seen.”
“I know she will value others perspectives no matter their age or background,” Arden said. “Let’s win this thing.”
Jasper Emhoff: Nephew
Jasper is the son of Doug Emhoff’s brother, Andy. Emhoff has a sister, Jaime, as well.
“No one is busier than my auntie, but she always makes time for family,” Jasper said on Wednesday.
Alexander Hudlin: Godson
Alexander is the other child of Harris’ best friend, Chrisette Hudlin, who introduced Harris to Emhoff.
He talked at the DNC on Wednesday night along with Arden and Jasper Emhoff.
“You know what superheroes do?” Alexander said Harris asked in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected to the presidency. “They fight back, and we will too.”
My dad was a man of very high achievement. He overcame poverty and racism to become a successful businessman who constantly gave time to help his community, a loving father who raised three successful men, a talented athlete, and a spiritual leader who challenged narrow minded thinking about religion.
He was the eldest boy of six children, the son of Edward Hudlin, a stone mason who served in France during the first World War, where he first saw the “rubble style” of home construction. That style of construction was brought to France by the soldiers who saw it in Egypt in the homes where the men who built the pyramids lived.
My dad and his brothers worked alongside my father building houses. My dad built the three homes our family grew up in with his own hands.
My dad grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas during the Great Depression. His mother moved the kids to New York after one too many lynchings of young Black men in the area.
His parents were too busy working, so my dad enrolled himself in high school. Sometimes he would come home, and the family would have been evicted from their apartment. He would wait until a sibling found him and showed him where the family was living now. Since, they couldn’t afford a radio, his father would stage family debates. If one side was losing, he would switch sides to help them. The point was to learn two sides of an argument, a skill his great granddaughter would perfect decades later.
To help with expenses, my father delivered telegrams for Western Union, riding through the streets of New York sorting envelopes while weaving through traffic with no hands on the handlebars.
My dad was also an expert lindy hopper, who would go to New York clubs like the Savoy and put on an acrobatic show so dazzling the crowd would stop and watch them. His friends would challenge each other to see who could create the most “circles” in a night. He was also known as “Orange Juice Hudlin” because he didn’t drink.
My dad joined the army during World War Two. When his platoon needed a volunteer to work in the office to handle paperwork, he took the job. That night, he blindfolded himself and taught himself how to type. Since he typed up who was late for reveille, he was never late.
After the war, my dad joined his father in St. Louis, where a recent tornado meant there was a great need for new construction, and there was plenty of the limestone that they used to build homes. They briefly lived in Kinloch, Missouri in a home with a dirt floor and no running water.
My dad graduated from St. Louis University, which he described as a racist institution. To prove his point, he once switched papers with a white classmate. Suddenly the paper he wrote but was submitted by the white student got a great grade, but the paper the white student wrote but was submitted by my dad got a bad grade. Given that one of my dad’s siblings went on to become a college professor, the other a college dean, three of them went to Ivy League schools and almost all of them received graduate degrees, the Hudlin family’s tradition of academic excellence pushed past obstacles like that.
There was also a branch of the family there, including my dad’s uncle Richard Hudlin, who coached Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson. My dad won the table tennis championship of New York City, and was an excellent tennis player as well, but he was busy raising his family in East St. Louis with his wife Helen, who shared his focus on education, hard work, parenting and improving the community.
After a brief stint teaching, he decided to start an insurance agency. Even though he had to convince black customers that the insurance policy he was selling was the same as the one they would buy from a white insurance agent, he became successful enough to be able to lend his dad money, who was still having a tough time supporting the family with his construction business.
My father was always involved in civic organizations. He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis, and coached high school kids about business in Junior Achievement. He helped found a community college in our town to help young people get ready for employment. He advised young business owners in the city and constantly tried to get the city to support business so they could employ more people.
My dad was asked to run for mayor but was never interested.
My dad also taught adult Sunday School at the AME Baptist Church he attended. My dad’s eldest son, and namesake went to Yale to study philosophy and shared the books he was reading at school with my father, who considered the ministry before he joined the army. My dad incorporated the Eastern Philosophy into his class and the students loved it!
But when a new minister took charge of the church, he called for a meeting with my dad and asked why he was teaching a religion that “worshipped idols”. My dad corrected him, explaining that Buddha said to pay no attention to him, only his works. Then my dad pointed out the large statute of Jesus on the cross at the front of the church. That was the end of him teaching at that church, but that is a lesson I will never forget.
One of my favorite things my father used to do with me is talk to me about his problems. He would talk to me about his disgust with grown men who would hit on teenage girls at Junior Achievement. He would talk to me about how he and his business partner would solve conflicts between them. He would point out when cashiers wouldn’t look you in the eye when they gave you change, which irritated him as a businessman. He would ask my advice, which was a great way of teaching me how to problem solve.
It hurts me that he never met my wife or my kids. He would have loved to see his grandson playing tennis or debate politics with his granddaughter. I’m glad he got to see my initial success. I’m glad he got to see his son Christopher double his insurance business. I’m glad he got to travel to Europe to film festivals with his son Warrington Jr. I’m glad he had cameos in my first two movies.
Most of all, I’m glad I had a dad as great as him.
